Gerald Kaufman
|term_start1 = 1992 |term_end1 = 2005 |predecessor1 = Position established |successor1 = John Whittingdale |office2 = Shadow Foreign Secretary |leader2 = Neil Kinnock |term_start2 = 13 July 1987 |term_end2 = 24 July 1992 |predecessor2 = Denis Healey |successor2 = Jack Cunningham |office3 = Shadow Home Secretary |leader3 = Neil Kinnock |term_start3 = 31 October 1983 |term_end3 = 13 July 1987 |predecessor3 = Roy Hattersley |successor3 = Roy Hattersley |office4 = Shadow Secretary of State for Environment |leader4 = Michael Foot |term_start4 = 8 December 1980 |term_end4 = 31 October 1983 |predecessor4 = Roy Hattersley |successor4 = Jack Cunningham |office5 = Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment |monarch5 = Elizabeth II |primeminister5 = Harold Wilson |term_start5 = 8 March 1974 |term_end5 = 12 June 1975 |successor5 = Ernest Armstrong |office6 = Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton |term_start6 = 9 June 1983 |term_end6 = 26 February 2017 |predecessor6 = Kenneth Marks |successor6 = Vacant |majority6 = 24,079 (57.3%) |office7 = Member of Parliament for Manchester Ardwick |term_start7 = 18 June 1970 |term_end7 = 9 June 1983 |predecessor7 = Leslie Lever |successor7 = Constituency abolished |birth_name = Gerald Bernard Kaufman |birth_date = |birth_place = Leeds, England, UK |death_date = |death_place = |party = Labour |alma_mater = Queen's College, Oxford |religion = Judaism }} in Iraq in 1988]] Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (21 June 1930 – 26 February 2017) was a British Labour politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1970 until his death in 2017, first for Manchester Ardwick and then for Manchester Gorton. He was a government minister in the 1970s and a member of the Shadow Cabinet in the 1980s. He became Father of the House in 2015 and was the oldest sitting MP of the UK Parliament at the time of his death. Kaufman was known for his forthright views, particularly his criticism over the state of Israel. He voted against the Labour Party whip on several occasions, and came under criticism during the parliamentary expenses scandal. Biography The youngest of seven children, Kaufman was born in Leeds to Louis and Jane Kaufman. His parents were both Jewish and came from Poland before the First World War. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School, and graduated with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford (Queen's College). During his time there, he was Secretary of the University Labour Club, where he prevented Rupert Murdoch from standing for office because he broke the Society's rule against canvassing. He was assistant general secretary of the Fabian Society (1954–55), a leader writer on the Daily Mirror (1955–64) and a journalist on the New Statesman (1964–65). He was Parliamentary Press Liaison Officer for the Labour Party (1965–70) and eventually became a member of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's informal "kitchen cabinet". In the 1955 general election Kaufman had unsuccessfully contested the Conservative seat of Bromley, and in the 1959 general election, Gillingham. He became a writer, contributing to BBC Television's satirical television comedy programme That Was The Week That Was in 1962 and 1963,The Papers of Sir Gerald Kaufman Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge; the National Register of Archives, London and Janus Project, December 2006The International Who's Who 2004 Google Books where he was most remembered for the "silent men of Westminster" sketch. He appeared as a guest on its successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. He acted as chairman of the Booker Prize judges in 1999. On 26 February 2017, it was announced that Kaufman had died, becoming the first Father of the House to do so while a sitting MP since T. P. O'Connor in 1929. Former Prime Minister and Labour leader Tony Blair praised Kaufman's work and said they had been close friends since Blair was elected in 1983. Member of Parliament Kaufman was elected MP for Manchester Ardwick at the 1970 general election; he switched constituency to Manchester Gorton at the 1983 election, following the major changes in parliamentary boundaries in that year. He remained MP for Gorton until his death. He was a junior minister throughout Labour's time in power from 1974 to 1979, first in the Department for the Environment (1974–75) under Anthony Crosland, then in the Department of Industry under Eric Varley (Minister of State, 1975–79). He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1978. After his re-election to the Commons in 2015, just before his 85th birthday, he became the Father of the House following the retirement of Peter Tapsell. Shadow Cabinet In opposition, Kaufman was the Shadow Environment Secretary (1980–83), Shadow Home Secretary (1983–87) and Shadow Foreign Secretary (1987–92). He dubbed the Labour Party's left-wing 1983 election manifesto "the longest suicide note in history". In 1992 he went to the back benches and became Chair of what was then the National Heritage Select Committee. Influential back-bencher He chaired the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport, formerly the Select Committee on National Heritage (1992–2005), and was a member of the Parliamentary Committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party (1980–92), of the Labour Party National Executive Committee (1991–92), and of the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform (1999). In 1997, Kaufman criticised the then Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House Mary Allen over alleged financial misconduct, which ultimately contributed to her tendering her resignation. Kaufman twice voted against the Labour Whip – the first time on the provision in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 to introduce an extra requirement in the process for private prosecutors seeking to obtain an arrest warrant for "universal jurisdiction" offences such as war crimes, torture and crimes against humanity; the second time against the Welfare Reform Bill 2015. LabourList |url=http://labourlist.org/2015/07/48-mps-break-whip-to-vote-against-welfare-bill-full-list/ |website = LabourList Labour's biggest independent grassroots e-network |accessdate=20 July 2015 |first=Roy |last=Rickhuss}} He voted with the government on the 2003 invasion of Iraq saying in Parliament "Even though all our hearts are heavy, I have no doubt that it is right to vote with the Government tonight". He was knighted for services to Parliament in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours. On 25 May 2010, during the Queen's Speech debate, Kaufman accused the Liberal Democrat candidate for his constituency during the 2010 election, Qassim Afzal, of running "an anti-Semitic, and personally anti-Semitic, election campaign" in Manchester Gorton.UK Parliament Parliamentary expenses scandal Kaufman was involved in the 2009 expenses scandal, where a number of British MPs made excessive expense claims, misusing their permitted allowances and expense accounts. Kaufman was found to have submitted expense claims that included £8,865 for a 40-inch LCD television and £225 for a rollerball pen. He blamed his self-diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder for his claims, and also said that his condition led him to purchase a pair of Waterford Crystal grapefruit bowls on his parliamentary expenses. Between 2005 and 2007, Kaufman claimed £28,834 for home improvements. He was subsequently summoned to the Parliamentary Fees Office to explain these claims, and in the end was paid £15,329. He was also challenged over regular claims for "odd jobs", which he submitted without receipts at a rate of £245 per month, then £5 below the limit for unreceipted expenses, to which he replied by asking why these expenses were being queried. Opinions Kaufman wrote many books and articles. Some are political – How to be a Minister (1980) is an irreverent look at the difficulties faced by ministers trying to control the civil service, in much the same vein as the television series Yes Minister. Some are cultural – Meet Me in St Louis is a study of the 1944 Judy Garland film. He contributed a chapter about John Hodge, Labour Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton elected in 1906, to Men Who Made Labour, edited by Alan Haworth and Diane Hayter. Kaufman was an outspoken opponent of hunting with hounds. In 2004 he was assaulted by a group of pro-fox hunting campaigners and claimed that he was subjected to antisemitic taunts. These he said he found ironic as he had recently been accused of being a self-hating Jew by a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He advised against London's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games in January 2003. He opposed Barack Obama, saying that the U.S. voters don't know a phoney when they see one, and if they did, "Barack Obama would not be president". Kaufman was one of 48 Labour MPs to vote against the second reading of the government's Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which included £12bn in welfare cuts, on 20 July 2015. In doing so they defied the party's leadership, which had ordered MPs to abstain. Criticism of Israel Kaufman, who was a member of the Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Poale Zion, Notable Jewish Individuals Supporting a Free Palestine Jewish Friends of Palestine, 27 May 2007. a socialist group with the Labour party in Britain, was critical of Israel. He called for economic sanctions and an arms ban against Israel, citing the success of such measures against apartheid South Africa. In 1988, on the 40th anniversary of the State of Israel, while Shadow Foreign Secretary, Kaufman appeared on a memorable edition of the television discussion programme After Dark "alongside Faisal Aweidah, the hardine PLO representative in London. For Kaufman, the appearance (was not) without a political risk, mainly of a backlash from British Jews who are unlikely to be happy about him appearing alongside Aweidah, a supporter of Yasser Arafat".'Troubled talks with the PLO', The Daily Telegraph, 14 May 1988 In 2002, he referred to Israel as a "pariah state", and called Israel's senior politicians "war criminals". Kaufman once publicly vowed to never again visit Israel, but in 2002 he retracted that promise to create a BBC television documentary, The End of the Affair, in which he recounted his youthful infatuation with Israel and his eventual disillusionment. Kaufman made a number of controversial statements in the film, including that Orthodox Jews were "infesting" Jerusalem. The film aired on Rosh Hashana. Some days later, on Yom Kippur, Kaufman was abused by fellow congregants in St. John's Wood Synagogue. In April 2002, during Israel's military operation codenamed Defensive Shield, Kaufman gave a speech to the House of Commons, saying in part: It is time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews, not to his repulsive Government. His actions are staining the star of David with blood. The Jewish people, whose gifts to civilised discourse include Einstein and Epstein, Mendelssohn and Mahler, Sergei Eisenstein and Billy Wilder, are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon, a war criminal implicated in the murder of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila camps and now involved in killing Palestinians once again. In July 2004, Kaufman wrote an article in The Guardian newspaper, entitled "The case for sanctions against Israel: What worked with apartheid can bring peace to the Middle East", in which he proposed economic sanctions against Israel. Kaufman criticised Israel for the deaths of British citizens Tom Hurndall and James Miller. In 2006, he called for the Israeli soldiers responsible to be handed over and tried in Britain, or before an international war crimes tribunal, and stated that economic sanctions would have to be considered if Israel refused to cooperate.British MP urges Israel sanctioned for killing of Britons Haaretz.com, 12 April 2006 In January 2009, during the Gaza War, Kaufman gave a speech to the House of Commons where he stated: "The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."MP Kaufman likens Israelis to Nazis, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 16 January 2009Robert Pigott, Fault-line between Jews over Gaza, BBC News, 17 January 2009 About his own family experience he said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." Kaufman also made a comparison between Hamas members in Gaza to the Jewish resistance during World War II, saying: "The spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that '500 of them were militants'. That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants." He said, "Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed." He also said that the Irgun were terrorists, and that "Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism". Kaufman urged the British government "to make clear to the Israeli government that its conduct and policies are unacceptable and to impose a total arms ban on Israel". In June 2009, he compared Israel's "oppression" of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to South Africa under apartheid and Iran. He described Iran as a "loathsome regime", but said that unlike Israel, "at least it keeps its totalitarian theocracy to within its own borders", and that the close proximity of affluent Israeli settlers to impoverished Palestinians was more "heart-rending" than conditions in South Africa during apartheid, as the bantustans were "some distance away from the affluent areas". He also said that Israel should follow the lead of the British Armed Forces from their conduct in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He was the leader of a large European parliamentary delegation to Gaza in January 2009 during which he said that Israeli officials who authorised the use of white phosphorus in densely populated Gaza should be tried for war crimes. Kaufman also called the Israeli blockade of Gaza "evil".British lawmaker says Gaza blockade 'evil' Ynet News, 15 January 2010 Following the Gaza flotilla raid, Kaufman called Israel's actions "a war crime of piracy in international waters, kidnapping and murder, all in pursuit of upholding an illegal blockade on Gaza that amounts to collective punishment". In December 2010, Kaufman criticised a proposed amendment to Britain's universal jurisdiction law seeking to prevent visiting Israeli officials from being arrested and indicted, claiming that such changes made a mockery of the British legal system. He highlighted the arrest warrant against former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for her part in the "slaughter" that took place during the Gaza War. He also claimed that British Jews were waking up to Israel's human rights violations and distancing themselves from Israel. Kaufman was berated for his statements by pro-Israel MPs. As Kaufman stressed Israel's alleged war crimes and breaches of international law, he faced even more vociferous criticism, and the Deputy Speaker of the House had to restore order. Conservative MP Robert Halfon accused Kaufman of using the bill reading for his own political agenda, and stated that his "hatred for Israel knows no bounds". Following the 2011 Nakba Day riots, when a number of Palestinian refugees were killed during clashes with Israeli security forces as they attempted to breach Israel's borders as part of protests demanding the implementation of the Palestinian right of return, Kaufman gave a speech criticising Israeli actions, claiming that Palestinians were "slaughtered", and said that "the way in which Israeli soldiers maltreat Palestinians is appalling".http://www.lfpme.org/latest-in-parliament-p225 Following the 2011 Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition and membership of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital, Kaufman wrote in the following in the letters page of an op-ed in The Guardian: President Abbas is to be congratulated on persisting in applying for Palestinian statehood at the UN, despite all the pressure and blackmail trying to force him not to. The quartet has never done anything meaningful to give the Palestinians their independence. If the US uses its veto at the security council, this will prove the smug windbag Obama to be the puppet of Aipac. The hypocrisy of those countries which vote against or abstain at the general assembly will be exposed. This brave Palestinian move will change the entire environment of the Middle East and tell the Israelis they must negotiate meaningfully if they wish to be one of the states in a two-state solution. Along with another Labour MP Martin Linton, he accused the Conservative Party of being "too close" to Israel."Labour MPs accuse Tories of being too close to Israel", Telegraph, 31 March 2010 In 2010, Kaufman said that those parts of the British Conservative party not controlled by Lord Ashcroft are controlled by "right-wing Jewish millionaires". On 30 March 2011 he was caught by a microphone in the Chamber of the House of Commons saying "here we are, the Jews again", when fellow Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman rose to speak, for which he apologised.Outcry at Gerald Kaufman's "It's the Jews again" remark in House of Commons Manchester Evening News, 31 March 2011 At a 'Palestine Return Centre' event in Parliament on 27 October 2015, Kaufman alleged that: "... Jewish money, Jewish donations to the Conservative Party – as in the general election in May – support from The Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the Conservatives". He also accused Israel of staging recent Palestinian knife attacks as an excuse to kill Palestinians. These comments were originally reported on by David Collier from his blog at Beyond the Great Divide. Collier had been present at the event and recorded Kaufman's speech. John Mann, the Labour MP who is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, denounced Kaufman's comments as "the incoherent ramblings of an ill-informed demagogue."Josh Jackman and Sandy Rashty, "Labour veteran Sir Gerald Kaufman claims 'Jewish money' has influenced Conservatives", The Jewish Chronicle website 28 October 2015. Retrieved 29 October 2015. The Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, released a statement saying Kaufman's remarks were "completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable", further saying that "Such remarks are damaging to community relations, and also do nothing to benefit the Palestinian cause. I have always implacably opposed all forms of racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia." Publications His publications include: *''How to Live Under Labour'' (1964) as coauthor *''The Left: A symposium'' (1966) as editor *''To Build the Promised Land'' (1973) *''How to be a Minister'' (1980) ISBN 0-571-19080-4 *''Renewal: Labour's Britain in the 1980s'' (1983) as editor *''My Life in the Silver Screen'' (1985) *''Inside the Promised Land'' (1986) *''Meet Me in St Louis'', British Film Institute (1994) ISBN 9780851705019 References External links * |- |- |- |- |- Category:1930 births Category:2017 deaths Category:Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Category:English Jews Category:English knights Category:English people of Polish-Jewish descent Category:Jewish British politicians Category:Jewish peace activists Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Labour Party (UK) MPs Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:People educated at Leeds Grammar School Category:Politicians awarded knighthoods Category:Politicians from Leeds Category:UK MPs 1970–74 Category:UK MPs 1974 Category:UK MPs 1974–79 Category:UK MPs 1979–83 Category:UK MPs 1983–87 Category:UK MPs 1987–92 Category:UK MPs 1992–97 Category:UK MPs 1997–2001 Category:UK MPs 2001–05 Category:UK MPs 2005–10 Category:UK MPs 2010–15 Category:UK MPs 2015–20